Planetarische Bauern

Ulrike Kuschel (born 1972 in Berlin) takes as her subject a curious collection held by the German Historical Museum in Berlin: dozens of replica peasant weapons fabricated in East Germany. The Berlin-artist delves into their origins and exhibition history. The Thuringian Peasants’ War and its leader, Thomas Müntzer (1489–1525), held a prominent place in East German historical propaganda. The ruling SED (Socialist Unity Party) legitimized its authority by claiming that the demands of that era had finally been met in East Germany through the establishment of a state governed by workers and peasants. From the 1950s onwards, many memorials were erected in Stolberg, Allstedt, Heldungen and Mühlhausen. However, exhibitions on the Peasants’ War still face a curatorial challenge, as original artefacts from the period are largely absent. As a result, a profusion of replicas and imitations have been displayed – a practice that remains widespread today and that the historian Hartmut Boockmann has criticized as “retrospective historical revision”.